The Salisbury swimming team put on quite a display at the District 11 Championship last weekend at Parkland High School.

On the boys side, Mahlon Reihman and Daniel Bonge won individual events and Salisbury won relay events in the 200 medley relay, breaking a district record, and in the 400 freestyle relay.

For the Falcon girls team, sophomore Sarah Bobeck turned in a huge performance in the 500 freestyle to beat the defending champion, Paige Jackett of Notre Dame (East Stroudsburg), and secured a spot in states next week at Bucknell University. Bobeck also took second in the 200 freestyle event.

Bobeck finished the 500 freestyle with a time of 5:20.15 to beat Jackett by just under three seconds in the event. The girls foursome of Bobeck, Madaket Chassard, Madison Jewell and Brooke Rogers put on impressive showings in both the 200 free relay and the 400 free relay, finishing second in the 200 and third in the 400 event.

“I was confident coming in because I was seeded first, so I just went out and tried to be positive about the race,” said Bobeck. “I didn’t want to complicate things by over-thinking the race and I didn’t focus on who I was swimming against. I just relied on what I’ve done all season. It’s really amazing to be going to states and have my first district title.”

“She really had a great meet,” said Salisbury head coach Patrick O’Connor. “We were really happy with how all of our swimmers worked coming into districts and it paid off.”

It’s possible that other Salisbury swimmers will make states, but the qualifying times for the 2A girls were not posted by the PIAA as of Press deadline Tuesday morning.

For the boys, Reihman edged out Central Catholic’s Gabe Castano by two-hundredths of a second to win the 100 freestyle and he came up just short of a district record to win the 200 freestyle over Marian Catholic’s Timmy Dando.

Daniel Bonge, AJ Oliver, Reihman and Ben Wiener not only teamed to set the new district record in the 200 medley relay, but they also took gold in the 400 freestyle relay.

“Overall, I’m very happy with how our team performed,” said O’Connor. “We had great times on both sides and even eclipsed what we thought we might do in some events, so I’m very happy and very optimistic heading into states.”

Bonge set an individual district record time of :50.84 in the 100 butterfly as he took gold in that event, locking up a spot in states, where he’ll be seeded fifth. In the 100 backstroke, Bonge finished second, but had a good enough time to qualify for the state meet in that event, being seeded eighth.

Oliver finished fourth in the 50 freestyle, but his time was still good enough to get an invitation to states, where he’ll be seeded 25th in the event. Wiener finished third in the 500 freestyle with a time of 5:01.56, but didn’t qualify for states.

Central Catholic swept the boys and girls team championships at districts, with the Salisbury girls finishing seventh and the boys coming in third. The boys team just missed a second place finish, falling just a half point behind Blue Mountain in the team standings, but over 100 points ahead of Pottsville, the fourth place team.